Bashir poll rivals want Sudanese electoral body dissolved

Khartoum- Sudan (PANA) -- The Presidential candidates representing Sudan’s main political parties, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Umma Reform and Renewal Party, have called for the disbandment of the National Electoral Commission.
SPLM Presidential candidate, Yassir Arman, who boycotted the presidential elections, said Monday that the electoral body had deliberately mismanaged the elections and lacked capacity to conduct a democratic election.
Arman, whose pullout from the Presidential elections drew the international community’s attention to the conduct of the elections, said the elections were marred by huge mistakes.
Umma Party leader, Mubarak Al Fadil, said the elections failed to live up to the expectations of the majority of voters, adding that the elections were the worst-ever conducted on Sudanese soil.
The Umma Party and the SPLM are among a group of major political parties that have boycotted the presidential elections to protest fraud and rigging of the elections.
Fadil said the electoral body lacked the required skills and know-how.
He said the elections in Eastern Sudan, where his party was a major contender, was worst managed and that the polls lacked fairness and transparency.
Reports suggest that some polling centres were changed without the knowledge of the voters in some places.
But some political parties could not get supporters to vote for them due to the mixup of party symbols on the ballot papers, election observers alleged.
Voters in the outskirts of Juba, the regional capital of Southern Sudan, demonstrated on Monday, protesting the failure by the electoral Commission to deliver the ballot boxes to the region.
In Eastern Sudan, reports indicate some electoral officials were threatened by violence.
At one polling station, a voter was reported to have produced a pistol and shoved it on the face of an electoral clerk.
The protesters in Juba said their names were not on the voter register.
Some 14 million voters were listed to take part in the marathon vote for multiple offices.
They include the office of the President of the country, the Southern Sudan President, the 25 regional state Governors and national and regional state assemblies.
Each voter is handed 12 ballot papers to vote for each of the offices.
Election observers say it took on average of 30 minutes for each voter to get through the process.
But some voters who had intended to vote for the opposition have been returning blank ballot papers in protest.
Election observers have been impressed by the peaceful conduct of the polls in most of Sudan.